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ALTEMUS’ 

ETERNAL LIFE SERIES. 

Selections from the writings of well-known religious authors’ 
works, beautifully printed and daintily bound In leatherette 
with original designs In silver and ink. 

PRICE, 25 CENTS PER VOLUME. 


ETERNAL LIFE, by Professor Henry Drummond. 

LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 

GOD’S WORD AND GOD’S WORK, by Martin Luther. 

FAITH, by Thomas Arnold. 

THE CREATION STORY, by Honorable William E- 
Gladstone. 

THE MESSAGE OF COMFORT, by Rt. Rev. Ashton 
Oxenden. 

THE MESSAGE OF PEACE, by Rev. R. W. Church. 

THE LORD’S PRAYER AND THE TEN COM- 
MANDMENTS, by Dean Stanley. 

THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS, by Rev. Robert F. Horton. 

HYMNS OF PRAISE AND GLADNESS, by Elisabeth 
R. Scovil. 

DIFFICULTIES, by Hannah Whitall Smith. 

GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING, by Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher. 

HAVE FAITH IN GOD, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 

..TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY, by Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher. 

THE CHRIST IN WHOM CHRISTIANS BELIEVE, 
by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 

IN MY NAME, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 

SIX WARNINGS, by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 


THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN, 

by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 

POPULAR AMUSEMENTS, by Rev. Henry Ward 


Beecher. 

TRUE LIBERTY, by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS, by Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher. 


THE BEAUTY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE, by Rt. 

Rev. Phillips Brooks. 

THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD, by Rev. A. 
T. Pierson, D.D. 

THOUGHT AND ACTION, by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 
THE HEAVENLY VISION, by Rev. F. B. Meyer. 
MORNING STRENGTH, by Elisabeth R. Scovil. 

FOR THE QUIET HOUR, by Edith V. Bradt. 
EVENING COMFORT, by Elisabeth R. Scovil. 
WORDS OF HELP FOR CHRISTIAN GIRLS, by 
Rev. F. B. Meyer. 

HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE, by Rev. Dwight L. 
Moody. 

EXPECTATION CORNER, by E- S. Elliot. 

JESSICA’S FIRST PRAYER, by Hesba Stretton. 


HENRY ALTEMUS, 

507, 509, 511, 513 Cherry Street, Philadelphia. 

























































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HENRY DRUMMOND 






































ow to Learn 
How 


By x 

Henry Drummond 

*\ 


Philadelphia 
Henry Altemus 

































































Copyright, 1898, by Henry Altemus. 



t 4 r l lo O ^ 


HOW TO LEARN HOW. 


I. DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

II. PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 



DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


HERE is a subject which I think 



A we as workers amongst young 
men cannot afford to keep out of 
sight — I mean the subject of “ Doubt.” 
We are forced to face that subject. 
We have no choice. I would rather 
let it alone; but every day of my life 
I meet men who doubt, and I am 
quite sure that most of you have 
innumerable interviews every year with 
men who raise skeptical difficulties 
about religion. Now, it becomes a 
matter of great practical importance 


7 



8 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


that we should know how to deal 
wisely with these men. Upon the 
whole, I think these are the best men 
in the country. I speak of my own 
country. I speak of the universities 
with which I am familiar, and I say 
that the men who are perplexed — the 
men who come to you with serious 
and honest difficulties — are the best 
men. They are men of intellectual 
honesty, and cannot allow themselves 
to be put to rest by words, or phrases, 
or traditions, or theologies, but who 
must get to the bottom of things for 
themselves. And if I am not mis¬ 
taken, Christ was very fond of these 
men. The outsiders always interested 
Him, and touched Him. The orth.o- 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


9 


dox people — the Pharisees — He was 
much less interested in. He went with 
publicans and sinners — with people 
who were in revolt against the respect¬ 
ability, intellectual and religious, of 
the day. And following Him, we are 
entitled to give sympathetic considera¬ 
tion to those whom He loved and took 
trouble with. 

First, let me speak for a moment or 
two about the origin of doubt. In the 
first place, we are born questioners. 
Look at the wonderment of a little 
child \n its eyes before it can speak. 
The child’s great word when it begins 
to speak is, “ Why ? ” Every child is 
full of every kind of questions, about 
every kind of thing that moves, and 


10 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


shines, and changes, in the little world 
in which it lives. That is the in¬ 
cipient doubt in the nature of man. 
Respect doubt for its origin. It is an 
inevitable thing. It is not a thing to 
be crushed. It is a part of man as 
God made .him. Heresy is truth in 
the making, and doubt is the prelude 
of knowledge. 

Secondly: The world is a Sphinx. 
It is a vast riddle — an unfathomable 
mystery; and on every side there is 
temptation to questioning. In every 
leaf, in every cell of every leaf, there 
are a hundred problems. There are 
ten good years of a man’s life in 
investigating what is in the leaf, and 
there are five good years more in 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


11 


investigating the things that are in the 
things that are in the leaf. God has 
planned the world to incite men to 
intellectual activity. 

Thirdly: The instrument with which 
we attempt to investigate truth is im¬ 
paired. Some say it fell, and the 
glass is broken. Some say prejudice, 
heredity or sin, have spoiled its sight, 
and have blinded our eyes and dead¬ 
ened our ears. In any case the in¬ 
struments with which we work upon 
truth, even in the strongest men, are 
feeble and inadequate to their tremen¬ 
dous task. 

And in the fourth place, all reli¬ 
gious truths are doubtable. There is 
no absolute proof for any one of them. 


12 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


Even that fundamental truth — the 
existence of a God — no man can prove 
by reason. The ordinary proof for 
the existence of God involves either 
an assumption, argument in a circle, 
or a contradiction. The impression 
of God is kept up by experience; not 
by logic. And hence, when the ex¬ 
perimental religion of a man, of a 
community, or of a nation, wanes, 
religion wanes — their idea of God 
grows indistinct, and that man, com¬ 
munity or nation becomes infidel. 
Bear in mind, then, that all religious 
truths are doubtable — even those 
which we hold most strongly. 

What does this brief account of the 
origin of doubt teach us ? It teaches us 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


13 


great intellectual humility. It teaches 
us sympathy and toleration with all men 
who venture upon the ocean of truth 
to find out a path through it for them¬ 
selves. Do you sometimes feel your¬ 
self thinking unkind things about your 
fellow-students who have intellectual 
difficulty ? I know how hard it is 
always to feel sympathy and toleration 
for them; but we must address our¬ 
selves to that most carefully and most 
religiously. If my brother is short¬ 
sighted, I must not abuse him or speak 
against him; I must pity him, and if 
possible try to improve his sight or to 
make things that he is to look at so 
bright that he cannot help seeing. 
But never let us think evil of men who 


14 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


do not see as we do. From the bofc 
tom of our hearts let us pity them, and 
let us take them by the hand and spend 
time and thought over them, and try 
to lead them to the true light. 

What has been the Church’s treat¬ 
ment of doubt in the past? It has 
been very simple. “ There is a heretic. 
Burn him ! ” That is all. “ There is 
a man who has gone off the road. 
Bring him back and torture him! ” 
We have got past that physically; 
have we got past it morally ? What 
does the modern Church say to a man 
who is skeptical? Not “ Burn him ! ” 
but “ Brand him ! ” “ Brand him! — 

call him a bad name.” And in many 
countries at the present time a man 



DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


15 


who is branded as a heretic is despised, 
tabooed, and put out of religious so¬ 
ciety, much more than if he had gone 
wrong in morals. I think I am speak¬ 
ing within the facts when I say that a 
man who is unsound is looked upon in 
many communities with more suspicion 
and with more pious horror than a man 
who now and then gets drunk. “ Burn 
him!" “Brand him!” “Excommu¬ 
nicate him! ” That has been the 
Church’s treatment of doubt, and that 
is perhaps to some extent the treatment 
which we ourselves are inclined to give 
to the men who cannot see the truths 
of Christianity as we see them. Con¬ 
trast Christ’s treatment of doubt. I 
have spoken already of His strange 


16 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


partiality for the outsiders — for the 
scattered heretics up and down the 
country; of the care with which He 
loved to deal with them, and of the 
respect in which He held their intellec¬ 
tual difficulties. Christ never failed to 
distinguish between doubt and unbe¬ 
lief. Doubt is can't believe; unbelief 
is won't believe . Doubt is honesty; 
unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is look¬ 
ing for light; unbelief is content with 
darkness. Loving darkness rather 
than light — that is what Christ at¬ 
tacked, and attacked unsparingly. 
But for the intellectual questioning of 
Thomas, and Philip, and Nicodemus, 
and the many others who came to Him 
to have their great problems solved, 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


17 


He was respectful and generous and 
tolerant. 

And how did He meet their doubts ? 
The Church, as I have said, says, 
“Brand him!” Christ said, “Teach 
him.” He destroyed by fulfilling. 
When Thomas came to Him and de¬ 
nied His very resurrection, and stood 
before Him waiting for the scathing 
words and lashing for his unbelief, they 
never came. They never came. Christ 
gave him facts — facts. No man can 
go around facts. Christ said, “ Behold 
My hands and My feet.” The great 
god of science at the present time is a 
fact. It works with facts. Its cry is, 
“Give me facts.” Found anything 
you like upon facts and we will believe 


18 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


it. The spirit of Christ was the scien¬ 
tific spirit. He founded His religion 
upon facts; and He asked all men to 
found their religion upon facts. Now, 
gentlemen, get up the facts of Chris¬ 
tianity, and take men to the facts. 
Theologies — and I am not speaking 
disrespectfully of theology; theology 
is as scientific a thing as any other 
science of facts — but theologies are 
human versions of Divine truths, and 
hence the varieties of the versions, 
and the inconsistencies of them. I 
would allow a man to select whichever 
version of this truth he liked after¬ 
wards; but I would ask him to begin 
with no version, but go back to the 
facts and base his Christian life upon 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. . 19 

that. That is the great lesson of the 
New Testament way of looking at 
doubt — of Christ’s treatment of doubt. 
It is not “ Brand him ! ” — but lovingly, 
wisely, and tenderly to teach him. 
Faith is never opposed to reason in the 
New Testament; it is opposed to sight. 
You will find that a principle worth 
thinking over. Faith is never opposed 
to reason in the New Testament , but to 
sight. 

Well, now; with these principles in 
mind as to the origin of doubt, and as 
to Christ’s treatment of it, how are we 
ourselves to deal with our fellow- 
students who are in intellectual diffi¬ 
culty ? In the first place, I think 
we must make all the concessions to 


20 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


them that we conscientiously can. 
When a doubter first encounters you 
he pours out a deluge of abuse of 
churches, and ministers, and creeds, 
and Christians. Nine-tenths of what 
he says is probably true. Make con¬ 
cessions. Agree with him. It does 
him good to unburden himself of these 
things. He has been cherishing them 
for years — laying them up against 
Christians, against the Church, and 
against Christianity; and now he is 
startled to find the first Christian with 
whom he has talked over the thing 
almost entirely agrees with him. We 
are, of course, not responsible for 
everything that is said in the name of 
Christianity; but a man does not give 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


21 


up medicine because there are quack 
doctors, and no man has a right to 
give up his Christianity because there 
are spurious or inconsistent Christians. 
Then, as I have already said, creeds 
are human versions of Divine truths; 
and we do not ask a man to accept all 
the creeds, any more than we ask him 
to accept all the Christians. We ask 
him to accept Christ, and the facts 
about Christ, and the words of Christ. 
But you will find the battle is half 
won when you have endorsed the man’s 
objections, and possibly added a great 
many more to the charges which he 
has against ourselves. These men are 
in revolt against the kind of religion 
which we exhibit to the world, — 


22 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


against the cant that is taught in the 
name of Christianity. And if the men 
that have never seen the real thing 
— if you could show them that, they 
would receive it as eagerly as you do. 
They are merely in revolt against the 
imperfections and inconsistencies of 
those who represent Christ to the 
world. 

Second: Beg them to set aside, by 
an act of will, all unsolved problems : 
such as the problem of the origin of 
evil, the problem of the Trinity, the 
problem of the relation of human will 
and predestination, and so on — prob¬ 
lems which have been investigated for 
thousands of years without result — ask 
them to set those problems aside as 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


23 


insoluble in the meantime, just as a 
man who is studying mathematics may 
be asked to set aside the problem of 
squaring the circle. Let him go on 
with what can be done, and what has 
been done, and leave out of sight the 
impossible. You will find that will 
relieve the skeptic’s mind of a great 
deal of unnecessary cargo that has been 
in his way. 

Thirdly: Talking about difficulties, 
as a rule, only aggravates them. En¬ 
tire satisfaction to the intellect is un¬ 
attainable about any of the greater 
problems, and if you try to get to the 
bottom of them by argument, there is 
no bottom there; and, therefore, you 
make the matter worse. But I would 


24 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


say what is known, and what can be 
honestly and philosophically and scien¬ 
tifically said about one or two of the 
difficulties that the doubter raises, just 
to show him that you can do it — to 
show him that you are not a fool — that 
you are not merely groping in the dark 
yourself, but you have found whatever 
basis is possible. But I would not go 
around all the doctrines. I would 
simply do that with one or two ; be¬ 
cause the moment you cut off one, a 
hundred other heads will grow in its 
place. It would be a pity if all these 
problems could be solved. The joy of 
the intellectual life would be largely 
gone. I would not rob a man of his 
problems, nor would I have another 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


25 


man rob me of my problems. They 
are the delight of life, and the whole 
intellectual world would be stale and 
unprofitable if we knew everything. 

Fourthly — and this is the great point: 
Turn away from the reason, and go 
into the man’s moral life. I don’t 
mean, go into his moral life and see 
if the man is living in conscious sin, 
which is the great blinder of the eye s 
— I am speaking now of honest doubt; 
but open a new door into the practical 
side of man’s nature. Entreat him 
not to postpone life and his life’s use¬ 
fulness until he has settled the prob¬ 
lems of the universe. Tell him those 
problems will never all be settled; that 
his life will be done before he has 


26 DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

begun to settle them; and ask him 
what he is doing with his life mean¬ 
time. Charge him with wasting his 
life and his usefulness; and invite him 
to deal with the moral and practical 
difficulties of the world, and leave the 
intellectual difficulties as he goes along. 
To spend time upon these is proving 
the less important before the more 
important; and, as the French say, 
“ The good is the enemy of the best." 
It is a good thing to think ; it is a bet¬ 
ter thing to work — it is a better thing 
to do good. And you have him there, 
you see. He can’t get beyond that. 
You have to tell him, in fact, that there 
are two organs of knowledge: the 
one reason, the other obedience. And 



DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


27 


now tell him, as he has tried the first 
and found the little in it, just for a 
moment or two to join you in trying 
the second. And when he asks whom 
he is to obey, you tell him there is but 
One, and lead him to the great histori¬ 
cal figure, who calls all men to Him: 
the one perfect life — the one Saviour 
of mankind — the one Light of the 
world. Ask him to begin to obey 
Christ; and, doing His will, he shall 
know of the doctrine whether it be of 
God. 

That, I think, is about the only 
thing you can do with a man: to get 
him into practical contact with the 
needs of the world, and to let him lose 
his intellectual difficulties meantime. 


28 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


Don't ask him to give them up alto¬ 
gether. Tell him to solve them after¬ 
ward one by one if he can, but mean¬ 
time to give his life to Christ and his 
time to the kingdom of God. And, you 
see, you fetch him completely around 
when you do that. You have taken 
him away from the false side of his 
nature, and to the practical and moral 
side of his nature; and for the first 
time in his life, perhaps, he puts things 
in their true place. He puts his nature 
in the relations in which it ought to be, 
and he then only begins to live. And 
by obedience — by obedience — he will 
soon become a learner and pupil for 
himself, and Christ will teach him 
things, and he will find whatever 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


29 


problems are solvable gradually solved 
as he goes along the path of prac¬ 
tical duty. 

Now, let me, in closing, give a cou¬ 
ple of instances of how to deal with 
specific points. The commonest thing 
that we hear said nowadays by young 
men is, “ What about evolution ? How 
am I to reconcile my religion, or any 
religion, with the doctrine of evolu¬ 
tion?” That upsets more men than 
perhaps anything else at the present 
hour. How would you deal with it? 
I would say to a man that Christianity 
is the further evolution. I don't know 
any better definition than that. It is the 
further evolution—the higher evolution. 
I don’t start with him to attack evolu- 


30 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


tion. I don’t start with him to defend 
it. I destroy by fulfilling it. I take 
him at his own terms. He says evolu¬ 
tion is that which pushes the man on 
from the simple to the complex, from 
the lower to the higher. Very well; 
that is what Christianity does. It 
pushes the man farther on. It takes 
him where nature has left him, and 
carries him on to heights which on the 
plain of nature he could never reach. 
That is evolution. “Lead me to the 
Rock that is higher than I.” That is 
evolution. It is the development of 
the whole man in the higher direc¬ 
tions— the drawing out of his spiritual 
being. Show an evolutionist that, and 
you take the wind out of his sails. “ I 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


31 


came not to destroy." Don’t destroy 
his doctrine — perhaps you can’t — but 
fulfil it. Put a larger meaning into it. 

The other instance — the next com¬ 
monest perhaps — is the question of 
miracles. It is impossible, of course, 
to discuss that now — miracles; but 
that question is thrown at my head 
every second day: “What do you say 
to a man when he says to you, ‘Why 
do you believe in miracles?’” I say, 
“ Because I have seen them.” He 
says, “When?” I say, “Yesterday.” 
He says, “Where?” “Down such- 
and-such a street I saw a man who 
was a drunkard redeemed by the 
power of an unseen Christ and saved 
from sin. That is a miracle.” The 



32 


DEALING WITH DOUBT. 


best apologetic for Christianity is a 
Christian. That is a fact which the 
man cannot get over. There are fifty 
other arguments for miracles, but none 
so good as that you have seen them. 
Perhaps you are one yourself. But 
take you a man and show him a mira¬ 
cle with his own eyes. Then he will 
believe. 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 33 


PREPARATION FOR LEARN¬ 
ING. 


I3EFORE an artist can do anything 
the instrument must be tuned. 
Our astronomers at this moment are 
preparing for an event which happens 
only once or twice in a lifetime: the 
total eclipse of the sun in the month 
of August. They have begun already. 
They are making preparations. At 
chosen stations in different parts of the 
world they are spending all the skill 
that science can suggest upon the con¬ 
struction of their instruments; and up 



34 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

to the last moment they will be busy 
adjusting them; and the last day will 
be the busiest of all, because then 
they must have the glasses and the 
mirrors polished to the last degree. 
They have to have the lenses in place 
and focussed upon this spot before the 
event itself takes place. 

Every thing will depend upon the 
instruments which you bring to this 
experiment. Every thing will depend 
upon it; and, therefore, fifteen min¬ 
utes will not be lost if we each put our 
instrument into the best working order 
we can. I have spoken of lenses, 
and that reminds me that the instru¬ 
ment which we bring to bear upon 
truth is a compound thing. It con- 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 35 


sists of many parts. Truth is not a 
product of the intellect alone; it is a 
product of the whole nature. The 
body is engaged in it, and the mind, 
and the soul. 

The body is engaged in it. Of course, 
a man who has his body run down, or 
who is dyspeptic, or melancholy, sees 
everything black, and disordered, and 
untrue. But I am not going to dwell 
upon that. Most of you seem in pretty 
fair working order so far as your 
bodies are concerned; only it is well 
to remember that we are to give our 
bodies a living sacrifice — not a half¬ 
dead sacrifice, as some people seem to 
imagine. There is no virtue in emacia¬ 
tion. I don't know if you have any 


36 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

tendency in that direction in America, 
but certainly we are in danger of 
dropping into it now and then in Eng¬ 
land, and it is just as well to bear in 
mind our part of the lens — a very com¬ 
pound and delicate lens — with which 
we have to take in truth. 

Then comes a very important part: 
the intellect — which is one of the most 
useful servants of truth; and I need 
not tell you as students, that the intel¬ 
lect will have a great deal to do with 
your reception of truth. I was told 
that it was said at these conferences 
last year, that a man must crucify his 
intellect. I venture to contradict the 
gentleman who made that statement. 
I am quite sure no such statement 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 37 


could ever have been made in your 
hearing — that we were to crucify our 
intellects. We can make no progress 
without the full use of all the intellec¬ 
tual powers that God has endowed us 
with. 

But more important than either of 
these is the moral nature — the moral 
and spiritual nature. Some of you 
remember a sermon of Robertson of 
Brighton, entitled “ Obedience the 
Organ of Spiritual Knowledge.” A 
very startling title ! — “ Obedience the 
Organ of Spiritual Knowledge.” The 
Pharisees asked about Christ: “ How 
knoweth this man letters, never having 
learned ? ” How knoweth this man, 
never having learned? The organ of 


38 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

knowledge is not nearly so much mind, 
as the organ that Christ used, namely, 
obedience; and that was the organ 
which He Himself insisted upon when 
He said: “ He that willeth to do His 
will shall know of the doctrine whether 
it be of God.” You have all noticed, 
of course, that the words in the origi¬ 
nal are: “If any man will do His 
will, he shall know of the doctrine.” 
It doesn’t read, “If any do His will,” 
which no man can do perfectly; but 
if any man be simply willing to do 
His will — if he has an absolutely un¬ 
divided mind about it — that man will 
know what truth is and know what 
falsehood is; a stranger will he not 
follow. And that is by far the best 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 39 


source of spiritual knowledge on every 
account — obedience to God — absolute 
sincerity and loyalty in following 
Christ. "If any man do His will he 
shall know” — a very remarkable asso¬ 
ciation of knowledge, a thing which 
is usually considered quite intellectual, 
with obedience, which is moral and 
spiritual. 

But even although we use all these 
three different parts of the instrument, 
we have not at all got at the complete 
method of learning. There is a little 
preliminary that the astronomer has to 
do before he can make his observation. 
He has to take the cap off his telescope. 
Many a man thinks he is looking at 
truth when he is only looking at the 


40 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

cap. Many a time I have looked 
down my microscope, and thought I 
was looking at the diatom for which 
I had long been searching, and found 
I had simply been looking at a speck 
of dust upon the lens itself. Many a 
man thinks he is looking at truth when 
he is only looking at the spectacles he 
has put on to see it with. He is look¬ 
ing at his own spectacles. Now, the 
common spectacles that a man puts 
on — I suppose the creed in which he 
has been brought up — if a man looks 
at that, let him remember that he is 
not looking at truth: he is looking at 
his own spectacles. There is no more 
important lesson that we have to carry 
with us than that truth is not to be 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 41 


found in what I have been taught. 
That is not truth. Truth is not what 
I have been taught. If it were so, 
that would apply to the Mormon, 
it would apply to the Brahman, it 
would apply to the Buddhist. Truth 
would be to everybody just what he 
had been taught. Therefore let us 
dismiss from our minds the predisposi¬ 
tion to regard that which we have been 
brought up in as being necessarily the 
truth. I must say it is very hard to 
shake one’s self free altogether from 
that. I suppose it is impossible. 

But you see the reasonableness of 
giving up that as your view of truth 
when you come to apply it all around. 
If that were the definition of truth, 


42 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

truth would be just what one's parents 
were — it would be a thing of heredi¬ 
tary transmission, and not a thing 
absolute in itself. Now, let me ven¬ 
ture to ask you to take that cap off. 
Take that cap off now, and make up 
your minds you are going to look at 
truth naked — in its reality as it is, not 
as it is reflected through other minds, 
or through any theology, however 
venerable. 

Then there is one thing I think we 
must be careful about, and that is 
besides having the cap off, and having 
all the lenses clean and in position — 
to have the instrument rightly focussed. 
Everything may be right, and yet when 
you go and look at the object, you see 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 43 


things altogether falsely. You see 
things not only blurred, but you see 
things out of proportion. And there 
is nothing more important we have to 
bear in mind in running our eye over 
successive theological truths, or reli¬ 
gious truths, than that there is a pro¬ 
portion in those truths, and that we 
must see them in their proportion, or 
we see them falsely. A man may 
take a dollar or a half-dollar and hold 
it to his eye so closely that he will hide 
the sun from him. Or he may so 
focus his telescope that a fly or a 
boulder may be as large as a moun¬ 
tain. A man may hold a certain doc¬ 
trine, very intensely — a doctrine which 
has been looming upon his horizon for 


44 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

the last six months, let us say, and 
which has thrown everything else out 
of proportion, it has become so big 
itself. Now let us beware of distor¬ 
tion in the arrangement of the reli¬ 
gious truths which we hold. It is 
almost impossible to get things in 
their true proportion and symmetry, 
but this is the thing we must be con¬ 
stantly aiming at. We are told in the 
Bible to “add to your faith virtue, and 
to virtue, knowledge, and to knowl¬ 
edge balance,” as the word literally 
means — balance. It is a word taken 
from the orchestra, where all the parts 

— the sopranos, the basses, the altos, 
and the tenors, and all the rest of them 

— must be regulated. If you have too 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 45 


much of the bass, or too much of the 
soprano, there is want of harmony. 
That is what I mean by the want of 
proper focus — by the want of proper 
balance — in the truths which we all 
hold. It will never do to exaggerate 
one truth at the expense of another, 
and a truth may be turned into a false¬ 
hood very, very easily, by simply being 
either too much enlarged or too much 
diminished. I once heard of some 
blind men who were taken to see 
a menagerie. They had gone around 
the animals, and four of them were 
allowed to touch an elephant as they 
went past. They were discussing 
afterwards what kind of a creature the 
elephant was. One man, who had 


46 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

touched its tail, said the elephant was 
like a rope. Another of the blind 
men, who had touched his hind limb, 
said, ‘‘No such thing! the elephant is 
like the trunk of a tree.” Another, 
who had felt its sides, said, “That is 
all rubbish. An elephant is a thing 
like a wall.” And the fourth, who had 
felt its ear, said that an elephant was 
like none of those things; it was like 
a leather bag. Now, men look at 
truth at different bits of it, and they 
see different things, of course, and 
they are very apt to imagine that the 
thing which they have seen is the 
whole affair — the whole thing. In 
reality, we can only see a very little 
bit at a time; and we must, I think. 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 47 


learn to believe that other men can see 
bits of truth as well as ourselves. 
Your views are just what you see with 
your own eyes; and my views are just 
what I see; and what I see depends on 
just where I stand, and what you see 
depends on just where you stand; and 
truth is very much bigger than an 
elephant, and we are very much 
blinder than any of those blind men 
as we come to look at it. 

Christ has made us aware that it 
is quite possible for a man to have 
ears and hear nothing, and to have 
eyes and see not. One of the disci¬ 
ples saw a great deal of Christ, 
and he never knew Him. “ Have 
I been so long time with you, 


48 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

Philip, and yet hast thou not known 
Me?” “He that hath seen Me hath 
seen the Father also.” Philip had 
never seen Him. He had been look¬ 
ing at his own spectacles, perhaps, or 
at something else, and had never seen 
Him. If the instrument had been in 
order, he would have seen Christ. 
And I would just add this one thing 
more: the test of value of the differ¬ 
ent verities of truth depends upon one 
thing: whether they have or have not 
a sanctifying power. That is another 
remarkable association in the mind of 
Christ — of sanctification with truth — 
thinking and holiness — not to be found 
in any of the sciences or in any of the 
philosophies. It is peculiar to the 


PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 49 


Bible. Christ said 11 Sanctify them 
through Thy truth. Thy word is 
truth.” Now, the value of any ques¬ 
tion — the value of any theological 
question — depends upon whether it has 
a sanctifying influence. If it has not, 
don’t bother about it. Don’t let it dis¬ 
turb your minds until you have ex¬ 
hausted all truths that have sanctifica¬ 
tion within them. If a truth makes a 
man a better man, then let him focus 
his instrument upon it and get all the 
acquaintance with it he can. If it 
is the profane babbling of science, 
falsely so called, or anything that has 
injurious effect upon the moral and 
spiritual nature of man, it is better let 
alone. And above all, let us remem- 


50 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 

ber to hold the truth in love. That is 
the most sanctifying influence of all. 
And if we can carry away the mere 
lessons of toleration, and leave behind 
us our censoriousness, and criticalness, 
and harsh judgments upon one another, 
and excommunicating of everybody 
except those who think exactly as we 
do, the time we shall spend here will 
•not be the least useful parts of our 
lives. 


ALTEMUS’ 

BELLES-LETTRES SERIES. 

A collection of Essays and Addresses by eminent English 
and American Authors, beautifully printed and daintily 
hound In leatherette, with original designs in silver. 


PRICE, 25 CENTS PER VOLUME. 


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W. Bok. 

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